The present invention relates generally to crop harvesting machines having a header housing crop harvesting components and, more particularly, to a header flotation mechanism for floatingly suspending the header from the frame of the harvester to permit the header to follow changes in the ground contours.
Crop harvesting headers house harvesting components, such as the cutterbar, reel and conditioning rolls, to sever standing standing crop from the ground and subject the standing crop to subsequent harvesting operation. It is desirable to floatingly suspend the header from the frame of the harvesting machine by a flotation mechanism that counterbalances a portion of the weight of the header so that the header may more easily follow changes in the contour of the ground. When harvesting forage crops, such as hay, it is desirable to operate the cutterbar in close proximity to the ground to collect as much of the standing crop as possible.
As noted in U.S. Pat. No. Re. 30,056, decreasing the weight of the header improves the floating characteristics thereof and permits the cutterbar to more easily follow the changes in ground contour. However, large amounts of flotational movement between the reel and the conditioning rolls affects the ability of the reel to feed severed crop material into the conditioning rolls. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a crop harvesting header for use particularly with a self-propelled harvesting machine, that would provide improved flotational characteristics of the header to permit the cutterbar to more easily follow changing ground contours, yet minimize the flotational movement between the reel and the conditioning rolls to improve feeding characteristics therebetween.